Undercover officers 'put bereaved families at risk'

The “ghoulish” practice of undercover officers plundering the identities of
dead babies could have “put bereaved families at risk”, MPs warned today.

A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer

By Wesley Johnson, Home Affairs Correspondent

6:00AM GMT 01 Mar 2013

Officers must never again be allowed to create false identities using the names, date of birth, home town and parents of dead babies, the Commons home affairs select committee said.

The damning report also found officers should be banned from having sexual relationships while using their false identities undercover, apart from in the “most exceptional” circumstances, and should never be able to father a child through such a liaison.

A “root and branch overhaul” of the laws governing undercover policing, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), was needed, the report said, because they were so ambiguous ordinary people were at risk of having their private lives infiltrated.

Keith Vaz, the committee’s chairman, said it was shocking that the “ghoulish and disrespectful practice of undercover officers looking to develop cover stories plundering the identities of dead infants” went on.

In one case, a woman who did not know she had been having a relationship with an undercover officer using the name of a dead child, traced the baby’s parents’ address to try to find out why he had disappeared.

“It is easy to see how officers infiltrating serious, organised criminal and terrorist gangs using the identities of real people could pose a significant risk to the living relatives of those people,” the committee warned.

“It cannot be sufficiently emphasised that using the identities of dead children was not only abhorrent, but reflects badly on the police. It must never occur again.”

A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer who spied on environmental protesters as long-haired dropout Mark "Flash" Stone and had at least one sexual relationship with one of the activists.

The Metropolitan Police launched Operation Herne into undercover police behaviour within its Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in October 2011 and has so far spent more than £1.25 million on the investigation.

The Association of Chief Police Officers backed the increased oversight of undercover policing and said police would welcome a review of RIPA.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act already provides strong safeguards but we recognise the system can be improved."